Three startups putting new technologies to work for peace and international cooperation

The third International Cooperation Forum (IC Forum) was held last week in Basel. Over 1,000 representatives from politics, business, science, and civil society gathered alongside President of the Swiss Confederation Viola Amherd, FDFA head Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, and Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde to discuss the theme of peace promotion.

The Swiss IC Award acknowledges and celebrates Swiss business organisations, SMEs and startups that are helping to make a difference in addressing the global challenges in the scaleup phase. By recognising outstanding projects, the IC Award showcases Switzerland as a leading hub for innovative approaches to international cooperation. The IC Award offers winners the opportunity to pilot their solutions in a developing context and get the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the federal government agency responsible for Switzerland’s international cooperation and development cooperation activities. 

Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis presented the three winners of the IC Award 2024 at the International Cooperation Forum 2024 on 11 April in Basel. Twenty-two startups and SMEs took part in the call for applications in 2024. From the ten ideas with the greatest potential for deployment in international cooperation contexts, that made it onto the shortlist, three startups stood out: AIDONIC, breathe medical and Ageospatial in the first, second and third place, respectively.  

First prize winner - AIDONIC
Zug-based startup AIDONIC has developed a blockchain-based and AI-powered end-to-end payments-infrastructure and data management platform for humanitarian organizations to accelerate financial inclusion with real-time impact tracking. With their solutions, AIDONIC empowers philanthropic actors to deliver aid faster, cheaper, and fully transparently. Their target groups include humanitarian organizations, private and corporate donors and impact investors. In the past, AIDONIC won the Swiss-South Africa Blockchain Innovation Challenge and was also among the finalists of XPitch 2023, a competition in Asia, where startups can win awards and an investment – prized US $1,000,000 - through a series of high-intensity pitch challenges.   

Silver medal winner – breathe medical
Zurich-based startup breath medical is developing the low-cost ventilator "breathe" for emergency use, transport, and short-term critical care in low- and middle-income countries. To introduce the solution into the market while enabling sustainable use in low-resource settings, the startup takes a holistic, user-centred approach to design a ventilator that is intuitive to use, robust, and easy to maintain, even in harsh environments. In collaboration with medical partners in Switzerland and on the African continent, breath focuses on safe patient care by integrating the ventilator into a training platform to promote medical and technical knowledge in low-resource settings and make the use of their ventilator more accessible. The company is currently collecting feedback from medical practitioners to enhance the product and receive feedback. In a recent pilot program in South Africa, the team held scenario-based simulation training sessions, which delivered positive insights that set the stage for further pilots in the country.  

Third prize winner – Ageospatial
The Lausanne-based startup works on solutions to make location data analysis (geospatial) accessible for vulnerable communities, to support them in their informed response to emergencies. After a successful plugin (Geo+ for ChatGPT) on the ChatGPT Store, Ageospatial developed ‘GeoForge’, a web geospatial platform that empowers users to rapidly assess damage from natural disasters, map risks and critical infrastructure, by removing technical barriers and improving accessibility unlike traditional geospatial software.   

(press releases / SR)
Image: ©International Cooperation (IC) Forum 2024 in Basel